"I Want to Be Happy" is a song with music by Vincent Youmans

Vincent Youmans

Vincent Youmans was an American popular composer and Broadway producer.- Life :Vincent Millie Youmans was born in New York City on September 27, 1898 and grew-up on Central Park West on the site where the Mayflower Hotel once stood. His father, a prosperous hat manufacturer, moved the family to...

 and lyrics by Irving Caesar

Irving Caesar

Irving Caesar was an American lyricist and theater composer who wrote lyrics for "Swanee," "Sometimes I'm Happy," "Crazy Rhythm," and "Tea for Two," one of the most frequently recorded tunes ever written. He was born and died in New York.Caesar, the son of Morris Keiser, a Romanian Jew, was...

 for the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette

No, No, Nanette

No, No, Nanette is a musical comedy with lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach, music by Vincent Youmans, and a book by Otto Harbach and Frank Mandel, based on Mandel's 1919 Broadway play My Lady Friends...

.

Musical

The song is used several times throughout the musical, as a running theme of No, No, Nanette is the attempts of various people to please others.

It is first sung by the character Jimmy to his ward Nanette.

Recordings

“I Want to Be Happy” charted several times over thirteen years:

• Carl Fenton
  Carl Fenton
  Carl Fenton born as Walter G. Haenschen, was an American bandleader, composer, and radio musician.- Name origin :The Carl Fenton Orchestra was a title given to Brunswick Records studio bands through the 1920s...
  
   and His Orchestra (1924, Billy Jones
  Billy Jones
  William "Billy" Jones , a seasoned veteran of the steam era who established the Wildcat Railroad in Los Gatos, California, was born the son of a teamster in the town of Ben Lomond, California, USA....
  
  , Ernest Hare
  Ernest Hare
  Ernest Dudley Hare was an English stage and film actor.- References :*...
  
  , Wilfred Glenn, Elliot Shaw, vocal, peaking at #5 over three weeks)
• Vincent Lopez
  Vincent Lopez
  Vincent Lopez was an American bandleader and pianist.Vincent Lopez was born of Portuguese immigrant parents in Brooklyn, New York and was leading his own dance band in New York City by 1917...
  
   and His Orchestra (1925, seven weeks, two of them at #2)
• Jan Garber
  Jan Garber
  Jan Garber was an American jazz bandleader.-Biography:Garber was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He had his own band by the time he was 21 . He became known as "The Idol of the Airwaves" in his heyday of the 1920s and 1930s, playing jazz in the vein of contemporaries such as Paul Whiteman and Guy...
  
   and His Orchestra (1925, 5 weeks, peaking at #5)
• Shannon Four comprised of Charles Hart
  Charles Hart
  Charles Hart may refer to:* Charles Hart , British actor* Charles Hart , British lyricist, songwriter, and musician* Charles E. Hart , American general...
  
  , Lewis James
  Lewis James
  Lewis James Lewis James Lewis James (unknown - February 19, 1959 was a vocalist and among the most active of recording artists in the United States from 1917 through much of the 1930s. He was a member of the The Shannon Four, The Revelers, and The Criterion Trio. He had many Top Ten hits during...
  
  , Elliot Shaw, Wilfred Glenn (1925, one week, peaking at #13) In 1926 this group became the Revelers.
• Red Nichols
  Red Nichols
  Ernest Loring "Red" Nichols was an American jazz cornettist, composer, and jazz bandleader.Over his long career, Nichols recorded in a wide variety of musical styles, and critic Steve Leggett describes him as "an expert cornet player, a solid improviser, and apparently a workaholic, since he is...
  
   (cornet) and Adrian Rollini
  Adrian Rollini
  Adrian Francis Rollini was a multi-instrumentalist best known for his jazz music. He played the bass saxophone, piano, xylophone, and many other instruments. Rollini is also known for introducing the goofus in jazz music...
  
   (baritone sax) (1930, one week, peaking at #19)
• Benny Goodman
  Benny Goodman
  Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...
  
   and His Orchestra (1937, one week, peaking at #17
• Bing Crosby
  Bing Crosby
  Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
  
  made a recording of the song on 18 November, 1954 at CBS Studio C, Hollywood, California.